A crack in the road
A random zigzag scars
the tarmac and heads towards the house.
He steps over it, winds his way like a drunk
along its crazy length. Straddles it.
Watches it cut between his feet.
Day after day he checks it
but nothing happens and no-one else cares.
Time passes. He no longer notices
the lightning-fork line that stops
at his door. Other things on his mind,
he heads to work.
It is only when he sleeps,
when he has sloughed off
the day’s torn skin,
that he needs to run, break free
of something dark, unbounded,
powerful. He is running through air
and falling, falling into
his sweat-damp mattress.
He opens the door and studies the crack.
Crouches down and traces its edge,
then forces his fingers into the wound.
He feels like an action hero
whose superpowers move the earth.
And then he feels weightless, breathless.
Free-falling, falling into
the sweat-damp pain.
He has found where the crack starts
and where the mending begins.
Joanne Maybury has lived in Uganda and Sudan, has worked a variety of roles and latterly has journeyed with the chronically and terminally ill. She now lives in the borderlands of Scotland where she is learning, amongst other things, to be a hopeful gardener. She loves dark chocolate and sunflowers and (almost) always has an acorn in her pocket. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Scotland, Theology, Penumbra Online, Heart of Flesh and others.
Amethyst Review 